Mongolia

Mongolia was an amazing experience! I've read a lot about the Gobi Desert, so of course we couldn't come to Mongolia and not see it. The majority of our 6-day road trip was spent driving through various landscapes. Most of the it were wide open plains where you can see all the way to the horizon, but then some rock formations or mountains would pop up seemingly out of nowhere, and then beyond the mountains, more open space. The terrain was constantly changing so the drive was not monotonous. Here are some pics (that's our seemingly indestructible Russian-made van in the pic):

The weather changes on a whim as well. During the day it's sunny and warm, but once the sun is gone the temperature drops down to about 20 degrees (felt colder with the wind). One afternoon we were caught in a hail storm. You can see so far out that we saw the storm clouds way ahead but our driver was not able to outrun the storm.

(Rainbow in the desert, after the hail storm. We spent the night in those gers.)

However, it's the remoteness of the place that makes this an unique experience. For most of the time, our driver and us would be the only 3 people around for as far as the eye can see, and probably even beyond that. There are parts of the midwest or the southwest where one can get that feeling. The difference is that here, there are no nicely paved highways with clearly marked signs telling you how far till the next town or gas stop. Here, there are just dirt tracks on the ground and no one around except for an occasional ger (round Mongolian tent that locals live in).

I'm not sure how our driver knows which track to follow. Sometimes he'll suddenly go off the tracks for a while and then pick up another track out of nowhere. This is they typical road we were traveling on (there are only a few paved roads in the entire country).

Once, to cut across the mountain range, our driver actually used the riverbed as the road:

We did see quite a few animals: eagles, gazelles, and foxes, in addition to the more common sights of horses, goats, and camels lazily grazing in the field. Here's a Mongolian cowboy herding his horses:

By far the most memorable part is the Khongoryn Els (sand dunes). It's a strip of sand that stretches as far as the eye can see in either direction, with the mountain range right behind it. The dunes look exactly like what one would imagine them to be:


We had a lot of fun climbing the dunes and playing in the sand:

We also spent one night at the Bayanzag region where dinosaur bones have been fossilized by the desert sand. There's nothing marked, so you have to rely on the a local guide to see them. It seems like there are lots of small fossils scattered around, each location carefully guarded by the person who discovered it. Our guide was the ger owner who took us to a carefully camouflaged location on a small hill nearby. He then carefully removed some rocks and dirt, and then folded back a plastic cover to reveal a fossilized jaw. Of course our skeptical side wonders whether or not it's really dinosaur fossils, or just some random animal. Either way, it's still pretty cool to see.

Traveling in Mongolia, on the other hand, is not for the faint-hearted. Driving on those dirt tracks is like going off-roading, or even off-off roading, imagine 4-8 hours of that each day. The gers we stayed in have no electricity or running water. The toilet is an outhouse with a deep hole and 2 planks of wood to stand on, or you can be like the Mongolians and use the great outdoors. Not to gross everyone out but we didn't get to shower except for one night when we stayed in a small town where you can pay at a public bath house to shower.

Interior and exterior of Ger:

The only source of heat in the gers is a wood burning stove which gets lit up once in the evening around dinner time so all the heat is gone by the time we went to bed. We had brought winter clothes but hadn't planned to sleep in gers for more than 1 night, and also understandably assumed that there would be heat at night. So, at night we'd put on all our layers plus the sleeping bags the guest house loaned us and still be frozen by the morning.

At one place our ger didn't have a stove in it, so the family let us sleep in their ger with them. That was quite interesting. While we were all bundled up, the family slept in tank tops and shorts. Guess it's all what you're used to. We also drank shots of vodka with some of the families, and tried horse meat (tastes like beef, a little tougher).

Even with all the discomfort, the experience was well worth it. In addition to everything else, the stars were amazing at night. The entire sky was lit up because there's no light or anything else to block the view. We also got to meet some cool travelers from all over the world: Brits, Swedes, Korean, Irish, Czech, Dutch American, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Mexican, Australian.. some of whom we may meet up later in our travels.

All in all, this was definitely one of the most memorable trips of our lives.